Pineapple Carrot Nut Muffins

A Facebook friend asked if I would share the recipe for the muffins I posted the other day, so I thought this would be an easy way to do it. 

The recipe comes from a recipe book I bought about thirty years ago. It’s Wild About Muffins by Angela Clubb and published by Barrons.

Pineapple Carrot Nut Muffins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and prepare muffin pan

In a large bowl, add and combine well

4 eggs

¾ cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup unsweetened crushed pineapple, with juice

1 cup grated carrot

Grated rind of 1 lemon

In a smaller bowl, combine well:

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 Tbsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. ground allspice

½ cup chopped walnuts.

Combine wet and dry mixtures and fold together gently until just mixed.

Spoon into prepared muffin pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Allow muffins to cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the pan. Makes 15 medium muffins. Enjoy. The grated carrot makes the muffin a little crunchy tasting. I have no idea about the calorie count. 

Rocommendations for Authors on Presenting a Public "Reading"

Many thanks to Sylvia Ross for giving us these useful tips.

Recommendations for Authors on Presenting a Public “Reading”

1. Look at your audience and acknowledge them. If you greet them warmly, they will probably treat you warmly. They will overlook any little glitches you might make in your reading, and you probably will make them. Your mouth will go dry. (Don’t ask for a glass of water, it will annoy your moderator, distract your audience, and won’t help your dry mouth. Just lick your lips, swallow and carry on.)

2. Wear a watch and check it frequently or carry a time. Set it for twenty minutes. You should be prepared to read that long. Time yourself at home. Don’t let a reading go longer than twenty minutes, the audience gets antsy. If they want to listen to you longer, they will have questions or will make comments.

3. Give a little background info on the selection you are going to read, particularly if it is an extract from a novel or other prose work, or if it might be confusing to the audience. Often a poem needs no more than a title, but occasionally it, too needs a bit of background to set the mood for the audience.

4. If possible, learn about your audience prior to the reading. Reading poetry at a soccer game? No. Reading a politically liberal essay at a Republican Women’s Organization? No. Reading a chapter from a literary novel full of polysyllables and long sentences at a meeting of the Rotary? No. If not possible to know the audience, have more than one work ready to read, or be ready to talk mostly about your work and why you write, than you actually read. Even if it is probable that they won’t like your work, the audience might like you. If they like you, they may mention you to their families and friends, some of whom might like what you write.

5. Project your voice to the LAST row. Header than it sounds. Easier for teachers than librarians. But people get really bored if they can’t hear what you are saying.

6. If you are being paid to read for an hour, which can happen, at the half-hour mark, ask your audience to stand up and stretch for a few minutes. You stretch too, take some deep breaths. At this time, asking for a glass of water is okay.

7. When the reading is over, you can interact with the audience, thank them, or ask if there are any questions or comments. Hopefully, there will be. And don’t forget to mention where your books are available, your website, blog, etc.
Good Luck.

Sylvia Ross is the author of Acorns and Abalone, a book of art, poetry and short stories; Acts of Kindness, Acts of Contrition, East of the Great Valley, and Ilsa Rohe, Parsing Vengeance, fact-based historical novels; and Coming to Completion, a book of essays. She now lives in rural Exeter, California. Born in Los Angeles, she attended parochial schools and later, worked for Walt Disney Studio as a cell painter. After she married, she and her husband settled in the Central Valley where she and her husband raised their four sons. She earned an honors degree from Fresno State University and taught in the Porterville Public Schools for many years. Her books are available at the Book Garden in Exeter as well as on Amazon.com.

Practical Nursing - 1907

I thought it might be interesting to read what was expected of nurses in my mother's time. I found myself thinking snide thoughts as I was typing these excerpts from my mother's copy of Practical Nursing.

Qualifications for a Nurse in 1907

Women who contemplate entering the profession of nursing should give the matter careful consideration, gathering from available sources an intelligent idea of the requirements, the trials, the hardships and the reward of such exacting work.

The reactions between the physical and mental conditions are so closely connected that the life of a nurse becomes unendurable when she is physically depleted, and consequently she fails to give to her patients the bodily or mental help which they require.

MEANS OF MAINTAINING HEALTH

A daily bath is indispensable. A warm bath followed by a cold shower is usually considered most effective.

The hair should be thoroughly washed every two weeks and well brushed every night.

The teeth should be always brushed and the throat gargled at lease twice a day.

The hands. After handling a patient who is suffering from an infectious disease, the hand should be disinfected before touching anything–even before washing them–by submerging and scrubbing them in a disinfectant for three minutes. 

Shoes … Sometimes, when a nurse first comes to the hospital, feet perspire a great deal; when this is the case the shoes and stockings should be changed twice a day. Odor due to perspiration can often be corrected by the use of borax or other alkaline powder in the shoes, or formaldehyde solution, 1 %, has also been found effective. 

Nothing is more conducive to good health than fresh air. Nurses should always sleep with their windows open, winter and summer. Sleep: At least seven hours sleep is required in order to keep well and to do good work.

Mealtime: Only in cases of extreme emergency do the hospital authorities expect nurses to shorten the time allowed them for their meals. Nurses should try to forget their work, done and undone, when they come to their meals. All “ward talk” should be avoided at meal-time; discussion of patients or hospital work should not be tolerated. Instead, the effort should be made to direct the conversation to interesting topics of the day, and amusing incidents that will divert the mind into new channels of thought.

Slight Ailments: Serious illness may often prevented by attending immediately to such slight ailments as indigestion, constipation, sore throat, to any appearance of infected fingers, and particularly common, the breaking down of the arch of the foot. Student nurses should not attempt to prescribe for themselves, as indiscriminate dosing often begets the “drug habit.” Students must not, however, expect to be off duty for slight ailments. If they wish to become useful and successful nurses, they must accustom themselves to working under difficulties.